


Midnight Song

by Satan In Purple (purple_satan)



Category: Food Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Freeform, M/M, Past Abuse, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, the morning after
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-07-29 22:00:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16273220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purple_satan/pseuds/Satan%20In%20Purple
Summary: He’s not in a laboratory anymore. Not in Nevras or Gloriville. His mind flits over hazy lines of poetry, obfuscations. Enough to fill countless books and countless lifetimes snuffed out by their hands both cruel and gentle in equal measure, meting out justice, as green hair turns brown cascading through his fingers like Palata’s everpresent sand.





	Midnight Song

**Author's Note:**

> for vyragosa and lux. the poem is a translated version of ‘Midnight Song’ by Li Yu. its probably not right, but i liked it all the same. i think if any of them were to ever speak their true feelings, it certainly would be shrouded in riddles.

 

_How can a man escape life’s sorrow and regret? **  
**_

_What limit is there to my solitary grief?_

 

He wakes to the phantom feeling of lips trailing along on his spine, the turning of pages and the sound of a book snapping shut. Tastes the acrid stench of smoke still in his lungs, the phantom pricks of syringes and IVs in his arms as reality swims, flashing bright like a strobe before blurring at the edges, white to red then finally back to black.

 _I returned to my homeland in a dream,_  a calm voice says in the dark,  _as I awakened, I shed two tears—_

Kicking off the sheets tangled around him, Boston groans.

Steam rolls off of him in steady waves, heating the already hot room uncomfortably. He’s not used to the dry heat, the rickety fan in the room that spins at a lazy pace more for decoration than anything else. Here the oceans have been replaced with vast seas of sand, the mighty kingdoms with crumbling ruins. And somehow, the room he’s in still smells like very human sweat, along with the medicinal tang of greenery. An almost creamy sweetness lingers heavy in the air like a talisman and he hates how cloying it is.

His hands find purchase in long hair, but it’s not the texture he remembers. In the chiaroscuro of night, wan moonlight knives through the curtains and the color is wrong too. The pale skin underneath his fingertips is too smooth to be what he remembers; buffered by sand, instead of ash. It’s certainly not unmarred but the lashes are the wrong texture, a crisscrossed spiderweb of scars instead of burns.

Adrift in the scratchy white sheets, he feels like boat with no moorings in a sea of fog, lost. He can see, but not smell, the cloud of hazy smoke and he blinks at the person stirring beside him.

“Boston—”

The voice is different, yet familiar all the same.

Hesitant. Worried.

“Don’t…” he trails off, reflexively striking the outstretched hand in front of him and a pang of regret runs through him as soon as it makes contact, claws clicking together frustratedly.

It’s too early for him and he’s too earnest, eyes following the lines of Green Curry’s collarbones, the way the sheets dip to lay around his waist. The way he doesn’t look hurt at what transpired, just sighs. Laying back down, his hair spills over the pillows, wild and untamed, like his anger.

 _Who now will climb up those high towers?_  A different voice asks.  _I remember those clear autumn scenes._

Holding his head in his hands, Boston smells smoke. Feels phantom fingers tighten around his throat, his chest, squeezing like a pressure cuff around his arm. The beeps of monitors juxtaposed with the tinkling bells, melodic laughter and the whisper of silk changshan and fur across his knuckles as someone took notes, pen scratching against the paper and he did good, he did good— _didn’t he?_

His temples throb, as his mind grasps for something in the haze. He’s not in a laboratory anymore. Not in Nevras or Gloriville. His mind flits over hazy lines of poetry, obfuscations, enough to fill countless books and countless lifetimes snuffed out by their hands both cruel and gentle in equal measure, meting out justice, as green hair turns brown cascading through his fingers like Palata’s everpresent sand.

_Those past events have lost their meaning…_

Turning, he sees Green Curry, arms pillowed behind his head. Without his mask and all of his trappings he looks deceptively fragile, the bruises beginning to blossom around his wrists and his neck like morbid daisy-chains, twining them together. He remembers the chasing the high of the night before with his skin. The way they moved like thunder and lightning on the horizon of a desert plain.

“I didn’t picture you the type to have nightmares,” he says conversationally and Boston scoffs, shaking his head but his companion isn’t deterred in the slightest. Green Curry is bold, bolder than he has any right to be and probably a bit mad as well. He brushes a hand over Boston’s face, through his hair, letting the sheet fall gracefully between them, smiling.

“I have them too,” he offers, eyes shuttered, lashes smudges against his cheeks as he kisses him and Boston doesn’t return the gesture. “It doesn’t make us any less strong.”

It’s a peace offering, something to placate, to keep the early morning tranquility as it is and perhaps they’ll be able to catch a few more hours of sleep before having to move again, always moving.

It’s  _infuriating._

“Save the psychoanalysis for someone else,” Boston mutters, snatching his hand by the wrist, fingers lining up perfectly with the bruises from the night before. He squeezes hard enough the other man’s eyes widen. “And if you want to fuck, we’re doing it in the shower this time.”

Green Curry snorts at that.

“What makes you think that’s what I want?”

_Because that’s all I was ever good for in the end. Fucking. Fighting. Sometimes both at the same time. Sometimes I couldn’t tell where the pain ended and the pleasure began, or where you ended and I began. I may have been older, but you were wiser. I may have been bright, but you burned brighter. And together we were like wildfire, not thunder and lightning —_

“You don’t.?” He deadpans and the other man smirks, fingers tracing indecipherable shapes into the sheets as he tilts his head, a lock of hair falling into his eyes.

“I do, but it’s not all I want. You fascinate me.”

Boston winces at the statement, it’s poor wording. He’s fascinated before. Researchers, Attendants, lovers, they were probably all  _fascinated_  with him at some point. People have written books about him, about how fascinating he is and it’s never amounted to more than trouble for him in the end with each and every one of them.

_“Why do you want to stay with me? You don’t need my help,” he said, as the man in front of him lowered his pipe with a smile. The number of lives taken around them was staggering, despite being a bloodless war. If he hadn’t known better they’d all look asleep, peaceful in a macabre sort of way, eerie in their stillness._

_“You fascinate me,” the other man replied, flicking his braid behind his shoulder and the gold of his monocle gleamed in the setting sunlight. “I’ve been watching you for quite some time and I believe I can provide aid.”_

Letting go of his wrist, Boston gets out of bed and is happy to see that his new companion doesn’t obediently follow, only his fractured conscience that keeps reminding him of times he can’t have back. Making his way towards the shower, he slams the door closed hard enough it nearly shatters from the force, as though the act alone will ward off the ghosts that haunt him.

* * *

_“Those past events have lost their meaning,” Peking Duck recites, one hand along the spine of the book, the other in Boston’s hair. Scratching blunt nails at his scalp, he closes the book of poetry and smiles down at his lover. It’s a rare moment of domesticity to be savored, his head in Peking’s lap, eyes already closed and exhausted from the day’s events._

_Peking sighs contentedly, closing his own eyes, and behind them another city burns._

_“They disappear as in a dream.”_

**Author's Note:**

> i can't believe i actually write soft porn about food, food porn. anyway come find me [@food-fantasy-support-group](http://food-fantasy-support-group.tumblr.com) if you want to yell at me for being a heathen, i don't mind.


End file.
